Decorations in the Academic Court will replace the long-time tradition of floats for Homecoming“Because very few people came out to the Homecoming game, we wanted more people to see what everybody put so much hard work into doing,” ASB president senior Daniel Ki said. “We feel like this is almost exactly like the same thing as floats except more people see it, it‘s on a bigger scale and you have more to work with.”
Cupertino High School is the location of the Homecoming game and will have its track remodeled after football season. Once CHS receives a rubber track, driving the floats on the track will not be possible. All of the schools in the Fremont Union High School District are scheduled to have rubber track, so no location in the district would be available, regardless of where Homecoming was to be held.
“Students are very rooted in tradition, and as much as we would like to steer away from floats… I don’t think that there would have been an impetus for the change if it hadn’t been for the [CHS] fields being torn down and rebuilt,” said Dean of Students Denae Moore.
The building of the Academic Court decorations started on Sept. 4. The set-up of the Academic Court will be on the afternoon of Sept. 30 and morning of Oct. 1. Students will be able to view the decorations during brunch and lunch on Oct. 1, and the community will be able to view them after school on the same day.
“I don’t prefer [the change] because I feel that Homecoming and floats go together. But if we can’t do it, we might as well enjoy what we can do,” float building participant sophomore Trisha Mitra said.
In addition to replacing floats with quad decorations, the ASB officers also decided to change the grading rubric for the event. The importance of Powderpuff and dress-up participation both increased from 10 percent to 15 percent each. The decorations are worth 35 percent, the rally is worth 25 percent and lunch time activities are worth 10 percent. The rubric is posted on the schoolloop for classes to view.
This year’s theme is classic cartoons. Seniors have the sub-theme of Flintstones, juniors have the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, sophomores have Scooby Doo and freshmen have Looney Toons.
“I do think that [quad decorations] will be used in the future because all of the class officers are really involved,” ASB Intra-District Council Representative senior Angeline Chen said. “And when they gain experience, it will catch on easier for the years to come.”
